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Beijing Drafts Mental Health Regulations in Preparation for Olympics

December 8, 2006

The Beijing Municipality Local People's Congress (LPC) on August 9 released draft regulations that would give public security officials the power to hospitalize mentally ill persons only if they pose a threat to public safety, life or property. The Draft Regulations on Mental Health also prohibit discrimination against mental health patients and their family members, and call for protections for mental health patients in the workplace.

The Beijing Municipality Local People's Congress (LPC) on August 9 released draft regulations that would give public security officials the power to hospitalize mentally ill persons only if they pose a threat to public safety, life or property. The Draft Regulations on Mental Health also prohibit discrimination against mental health patients and their family members, and call for protections for mental health patients in the workplace. Officials have discussed the regulations as part of a legislative program to be passed in connection with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, according to a September 15 Beijing Morning News report. The central government continues to consider the 17th draft of a national mental health law that was first introduced in 1985.

On their face the draft regulations appear to protect persons from arbitrarily being deemed mentally ill and forcibly hospitalized, a concern in this case because of the timing of the regulations, the Chinese government's past treatment of the mentally ill while bidding for the Olympics, and a history of officials detaining political activists in mental health facilities. In March 1993, as a part of the Chinese government's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, Beijing authorities removed homeless, indigent, and mentally ill people from the city before the arrival of an International Olympic Committee delegation, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report.

Beijing's draft regulations stipulate that in order for public security officials to commit an individual to a mental health facility, his or her behavior must present a threat to "public safety, life or property" as diagnosed by at least two mental health physicians. If doctors determine that the person does not need hospitalization, then he or she must be released and returned to his or her family or guardian. These provisions appear to be consistent with the provisions of the UN's 1991 Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care (1991 Principles) that allow for involuntary admission of a patient to a mental health facility if a qualified mental health practitioner thinks there is a serious likelihood of immediate or imminent harm to that person or other persons.

While the rules regarding the decision to commit an individual appear consistent with the 1991 Principles, the provisions that deal with the review of that decision contravene the 1991 Principles. The 1991 Principles provide that involuntary admission shall "initially be for a short period" pending review by a "judicial or other independent and impartial body" which shall conduct its review as soon as possible after the patient is admitted. The draft regulations do not provide for an independent and impartial review in a timely manner. Instead, Article 27 of the regulations provides that the medical treatment facility shall conduct the review, which it may take up to six months to complete.

The 1991 Principles provide that "a determination of mental illness shall never be made on the basis of political, economic or social status, or membership of a cultural, racial or religious group, or any other reason not directly relevant to mental health status." In the past, international human rights groups have documented the use of psychiatric treatment to persecute political activists in China, and expressed concern regarding the deprivation of liberty of mentally ill people. In its 2002 report on the use of political psychiatry in China, Human Rights Watch asserted that the involuntary confinement in mental hospitals of those the Chinese government regards as a "political threat" directly violates both the World Psychiatry Association's 1996 Declaration of Madrid and the 1991 Principles. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published a report (available on the UNWGAD's Country Visits Web page) following its September 2004 mission to China in which it found that, "the Chinese system of confinement of mentally ill persons in mental health facilities, which they are not allowed to leave, is to be considered a form of deprivation of liberty, since it lacks the necessary safeguards against arbitrariness and abuse."

The Commission has also documented the forced detention of political prisoners in hospitals for mentally ill criminal offenders. See the CECC's prior analysis in the cases of Liu Xinjuan and Wang Wanxing.

For more on the Chinese government's record of forced psychiatric commitment see Section V(b) Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants, of the CECC's 2006 Annual Report.